Page 40 of Semper

My heart stopped. The heavy pause in the air was suffocating. One of the women attending to Emilia stepped forward immediately, her movements swift and precise as she grabbed the limp newborn.

She snipped the umbilical cord without hesitation, handing it off to another woman who began to work on the lifeless infant, their faces etched in grim determination.

Emilia let out a broken sob, her body wracked with exhaustion, but she was quickly told to keep pushing. The placenta still needed to be delivered. I squeezed her hand harder, trying to offer some sort of comfort, though I had none to give. I was shaking, unable to tear my eyes away from the scene unfolding before me.

Cassandra, lying across the room on her own bed, mimicked every movement, every scream, every push. It was as though their bodies were connected in some twisted, unimaginable way. Every time Emilia’s stomach was pressed on, Cassandra’s stomach responded in kind, flattening beneath the hands of the attendants.

Keres swore under her breath, and I couldn’t help but agree. What the hell was happening? The answer came crashing down on me like a wave, cold and brutal. I remembered one of the last passages I had read in the doctrine. One of the most twisted parts of this entire place. My stomach clenched as the realization settled over me. The woman whose hand I held so tightly wasn’t going to be the mother of this child. She was aProgenitor. A breeder.

The weight of it crushed me.

I looked at Emilia, really looked at her, and saw the truth in her hollow eyes, the resignation in her sobs. She had been used to bring a baby into the world, but it would never be hers. I could see it all, the full horror of it now.

Cassandra had never been pregnant, yet she mirrored all the stages of pregnancy down to the birth. All while Emilia, the one who had suffered through every agonizing moment of labor, would be left empty-handed, her purpose already fulfilled. The words from the doctrine echoed in my head:Progenitors exist to provide life, to continue the bloodlines that matter most. Their worth is measured in their ability to bear children.

I stared down at Emilia, my throat tightening. This was her existence, defined not by who she was, but by what her body could do. The people here didn’t see her as anything more than a vessel. I held her hand a little tighter as if it would somehow make this nightmare easier to bear. Emilia’s body shook with another sob, and Cassandra’s chest rose and fell as if in relief, her own torment finally ending. There was no pregnancy, no true bond between her and the life that had just been brought into the world, but to the others, it didn’t matter.

I wanted to scream.

Keres figured it out moments after I did, and I watched as silent tears rolled down her cheeks, her usual bravadocrumbling. The room remained absent of the cries of a baby, and deep down, I knew they would never come.

There was only silence.

"I'm going to be sick," Keres muttered, her eyes flicking down toward the placenta before she bolted from the room. My heart twisted, unsure if I should follow her, unsure of anything. My mind couldn't process fast enough. Everything felt wrong, twisted beyond comprehension, and I was stuck in the middle of it.

The sound of hurried footsteps echoed through the house, and then Jamison was there. He stepped into the room, his eyes immediately sweeping over the scene, taking it all in with an expression I couldn’t decipher.

Instead of going to Cassandra—his wife, his sister—he rushed to Emilia. I stepped back, nearly retreating into a corner as Jamison reached the bed. He dropped to his knees beside her, his hands gently cupping her tear-streaked face as she began apologizing, her sobs wracking her frail body.

"I'm sorry," Emilia wept, over and over, her voice breaking. "I'm so sorry."

"It's okay," Jamison murmured, his voice thick with emotion. "It's okay, Em. You're okay." Tears glistened in his own eyes as he leaned forward, pressing his forehead to hers, trying to offer her any comfort he could.

The sight of it made my stomach churn, not because of Jamison’s actions, but because of Cassandra. She lay on her bed, mirroring Emilia’s cries, mocking the woman’s anguish as if it belonged to her. The look on her face as she watched her husband comfort Emilia was something else entirely—it was pure hatred. It twisted something inside me.

I couldn’t stand to see it. Without thinking, I moved in front of Jamison and Emilia, blocking Cassandra’s view. For a split second, her hatred shifted to me, her eyes narrowing in rage. Butthen she remembered who I was. Her gaze dropped, and her lips pressed together in a tight line as if she didn’t dare show that hatred to me. My stomach churned violently, and I felt bile rising in my throat.

I needed to get out of the room.

I barely made it to the hallway before the sobs hit me. I pressed my palms against my face, trying to stifle the sound, trying to regain control, but the weight of what I had just witnessed was too much. It wasn’t just how women were treated; it was how they were reduced to vessels, their worth determined by the blood in their veins or the ability to serve something greater.

If they didn’t have the right station or lineage, they were cast aside and forced into submission.

I had just helped perpetuate the same lie. The weight of that truth suffocated me as I leaned against the cold wall, fighting back the wave of nausea and grief threatening to tear me apart. The Isle was a living breathing nightmare, and there was no waking from it.

I didn’t hear Alexander approaching, but I felt him—like he was part of the shadows creeping toward me. One moment, I was unraveling, my thoughts spiraling, and the next, his arms wrapped around me, firm, and possessive, as if daring the world to pry me away. There was a gentleness there too, a softness that confused me, made me second-guess my instincts.

He was my captor, but at that moment, I found myself needing the control he provided.

Alexander whispered soft reassurances, his voice a low hum that barely registered over the storm in my mind. Words of comfort, manipulation—both. I clung to them, desperate for anything that would tether me to reality.

He ushered me out of the house with ease, plucking me from my chaos and into his domain. Before I knew it, I was in theback of a sleek sedan, the cool leather seats pressing against me like an embrace I didn’t deserve. My hands trembled as I cradled my head, my thoughts still swirling with images of Emilia's hollowed eyes and Cassandra's twisted smirk. The lifeless child, the eerie calm after the screams—it all lingered, gnawing at the edges of my sanity.

Alexander closed the door softly, the click sealing me off from the horrors behind me. The driver remained impassive and silent, a mere ghost in the front seat, part of the Isle’s cold machinery. I wrapped my arms tighter around my knees, pulling myself into the smallest space possible, as though I could disappear into myself and escape it all. Alexander left me alone in the car for what felt like hours, though it had only been minutes.

The silence didn’t feel like a reprieve. It felt like he had given me just enough time to let the horror sink in and realize I had no way out—except through him. When he returned, slipping into the seat beside me, his hand found its way to my thigh. He didn’t speak right away, but when he did, his voice was laced with a darkness I could feel in my bones. "It’s a hard thing to witness, isn’t it?" he murmured. "To see how fragile life is"

When I said nothing, he let the silence stretch between us like a taut wire until finally, his voice cut through the quiet. "The Isle can be cruel with its rejections," he murmured, his words lingering in the air like a curse.

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